Condividi tramite

Welcome, .NET 3.0 Training, and XNA is Great

  • Articolo

Hey, Internet. How are you guys? 

I wanted to open up my first MSDN blog post with a bang; I wanted something more impactful than the requisite line I see on most other blogs: "This is my blog. I will write here some other time." Posted by Bob, 10/21/1994.
What's more impactful than the fact that I made a sweet rendition of Pong using XNA? In TEN HOURS? With absolutely zero knowledge of XNA?

XNA is our gaming platform. XNA Game Studio Express is the free version and it's based on Visual C# Express. You can target games to the PC or the Xbox (with a Creators Club membership).

I am getting a good dose of .NET 3.0 training this week (WCF/WPF/CardSpace, plus a little AJAX and Silverlight) but I am really inclined to show you guys how I made this game in ten hours (which actually included sound design and some really basic graphics).

I really want to highlight the fact that when you create a new game using the XNA project templates, you are given everything you need to get started. You don't have to write message loops or talk directly to the video device. The last time I tried to write a game, it was using DX 3.1, and I gave up pretty fast.

The best part about XNA? It's so easy to use (yet so powerful) that many people are creating tutorials to show you how to make simple games. And unlike the dark ages, making a simple game doesn't take 2 weeks and a math degree anymore.

Some great Microsoft XNA resources:

Some great third-party XNA resources:

 

 

Oh yeah. And I'm going to write here more.